Crowe welcomes Childhood Development Initiative Report

Dublin South West TD, Seán Crowe, has welcomed the launch of the Tallaght based Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) report and believes that the positive work and additional supports CDI offer need to be replicated in communities that are being held back by disadvantage, right across the State.

The CDI is part funded by Government and Atlantic Philanthropies, and it supplies language and speech therapy supports.

Crowe described the evidence based report as impressive and welcomed the positive impact and outcomes that the work had on children that were previously struggling and finding it difficult to cope.

Deputy Sean Crowe said:

“I want to welcome and support the call from the Tallaght-based Childhood Development Initiative (CDI) for the establishment of an early intervention speech and language therapy service in disadvantaged areas.

“The evidence based CDI report shows that early intervention services helps reduce disadvantage in pre-school children before they begin their formal education.

“The report bases its findings on a pilot early intervention scheme that has vastly improved educational outcomes for children in Tallaght West since 2007 and was independently evaluated by the Centre for Social and Educational Research at Dublin Institute of Technology.

“This ground-breaking service has provided therapeutic support to 157 children. The children were identified as struggling to cope with educational matters and falling behind their classmates in terms of educational development.

“Of the 157 children involved in the study, 18 per cent were discharged as their skills had improved to a normal standard after a period of support. If it wasn’t for the therapeutic support of CDI these children would probably still be struggling to cope and remain behind their peers.

“The Government needs to take notice of these impressive outcomes, and use the glaringly obvious evidence contained in this report, when planning for the future.

“It is a well-established fact that speech and language development can be of huge concern in disadvantaged areas, and if this is not addressed by the time these children start primary school, it will cause lifelong difficulties in their literacy and learning abilities.

“As well as the development of dedicated services for disadvantaged communities, the report also recommends that all early years practitioners, teachers, and related professionals, receive appropriate training in speech and language development.

“The report also highlights the vitally important roles parents can and do play. Educating parents on the need for and value of speech and language therapy is vital to promoting attendance at speech and language services. Services should also be responsible for ensuring that parents are appropriately informed and involved in their child’s therapy process.

“One parent at the launch said that her 2 year old son only had a range of about 20 words before he started speech and language therapy, but the slow painstaking work had now transformed him and made a much happier and confident child.

“This is a good news story and shows the need for CDI projects to be replicated and rolled out right across the country. The systems identified in this report work and should be used to transform and ignite the huge potential that these young children clearly have.”